


Holding On

by tainry



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 14:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6082311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tainry/pseuds/tainry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three days after "Thrill of the Hunt". Optimus is having difficulty. Ratchet helps, and Bee wants to understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding On

It was happening again. Ratchet recognized the signalment all too well. This was the third time Prime had come out of recharge with that frightened, staring look on his face. He was frozen, joints locked as though in stasis, but his energy signature was fluctuating crazily. Like the readings on one of the devices the humans used to detect and measure the sometimes catastrophic movements of their young, unstable planet’s crust. 8.5 on the Richter scale. 

After a few nanokliks, Prime would sit up and all would seem well for the rest of the solar cycle.

Ratchet understood. This time the medibot placed his hand on Prime’s chest. Lightly. Not holding him down, just letting him know he wasn’t alone. He monitored Prime’s level of consciousness carefully. 

“You’re safe,” Ratchet said the moment Prime could hear him. “I’m right here.”

“Ratchet?”

Prime’s voice wavered almost the same as before – when Ratchet had found him strapped to the table with his right arm torn open. Optimus covered Ratchet’s hand with one of his own, meeting the medibot’s scrutiny readily enough. The quirk in his wan smile meant he knew that he couldn’t very well refuse help when he kept pestering everyone else to accept it. 

A yellow head poked around the corner. Bumblebee, for all his surface self-absorption, kept a sensor on Prime pretty much most of the time. Especially after the fall. And now.

“Good morning, Bumblebee,” Prime said, his expression a little too determinedly normal. Bee came over and ducked into a one-armed hug. Ratchet found he needed to check on something on the other side of the base. 

“You okay?”

“I will be.”

“Whiiiich means you aren’t, right now.”

Prime smiled. “I guess.”

Bee gave him a half-strength glare and snuggled in closer. “Wanna talk about it?” he said, thinking he’d catch Prime at his own game, and maybe get a better smile.

But Optimus was, if anything, a painfully honest ‘bot. After an unhappy pause, he described everything that had happened aboard Lockdown’s ship. As much as he could remember, for the parts when he’d been conscious. Bumblebee wished he hadn’t asked. This wasn’t a human TV drama, or a 4D from home. These things had happened to ‘bots he knew. His friends. And would have happened to him, if Prowl hadn’t intervened. He buried his faceplate in Prime’s side and held on tight for a while, because there was nothing else he could do. Optimus held on, too, gently stroking Bee’s shoulders and back armor. And that helped both of them.


End file.
